Rivers and the Sixers organized field trips to the Old Slave Mart Museum, often staffed by individuals who trace their history to the enslaved people of Charleston, and to the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture. The 76ers stuck to the team bus last week. Back then, coach Pat Riley made the players walk from the team hotel to the arena. Rivers was a guard with the Knicks in the early 1990s when the team held camp at the College of Charleston. “They go home at the end of practice and they don’t spend time with each other.” “When you have camp at home, you don’t get that,” Rivers said. The Sixers gathered last week for team dinners, played card and video games, and had serious conversations, the type of day-to-day activities largely shelved the last two seasons because of COVID-19 protocols. The Sixers usually hold camp at their New Jersey complex but Rivers wanted to strengthen team bonding with a road trip. The Sixers practiced at The Citadel, the military college where tanks and jets and plaques dedicated to prisoners of wars dot the campus, an education all part of Rivers’ plan to squeeze more out of camp than basketball. That outreach starts at home - or perhaps, on this point, on the road - where Rivers used training camp not just as the usual time to rehash X’s and O’s but as a daily history class. Rivers has become an agent of change in the NBA and found his voice as an activist, trying to contribute perhaps more to the league than he has already, first as an All-Star guard and then with a coaching career that includes the 2008 championship with Boston and a spot this year on the list of the 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA History. I want us all to function with each other.” “When you hear, ‘America first,’ that scares me, because I’m a Black man and that’s not including me,” Rivers said last week in an interview with The Associated Press.
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